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'A gastric pouch reduces the stomach. People get round this by making their oesophagus bigger.

'That's where the food was staying. I think they eat a tiny bit and think it goes somewhere, so they'll have a little bit more, and it's a longstanding thing.

'Your oesophagus is the size of a little finger, but hers was as big as her stomach.

'I considered the food had blocked off her breathing and that was the cause of death.'

A gastric bypass operation: It reduces the stomach to a small pouch the size of a thumb

Gastric bypass surgery reduces the stomach to a small pouch the size of a thumb.

Originally from Trinidad in the West Indies, Mrs Cooper-Clarke told her family that she had undergone surgery for cancer in March 2010 when she had in fact had a gastric bypass to reduce the size of her stomach.

She told her son Yvan Clarke that she had surgery on her legs - but he told the inquest that 'deep down' he knew this was not the case.

'For at least a year she was eating less,' he said.

'Throughout that time I thought she was very closely monitoring it.'

The inquest heard that the gastric bypass had a 'massive impact' on her weight and had reduced her BMI and blood pressure.

Mrs Cooper-Clarke's GP, Dr Hugh Fairlie, said in a statement that she was the fittest she had ever been before her death and was due to travel to Trinidad for three months.

He said: 'By November she was as fit as I had seen her apart from the depression.'

In a narrative verdict, deputy coroner Andrew Cox said: 'People do not stick to it [eating less] and this is tragically what happens.

'This is not a natural cause of death. It is not an accident because she chose to eat. She died of a known complication of an elective surgical procedure of a gastric bypass.'

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Obese woman suffocates on food after gastric bypass surgery meant it couldn¿t fit into her stomach